Leaving the Party – Details, episodes & analysis

Kerry and Tess talk in great detail this episode about Lovely Lady RPG, a game which, in line with the ethos of this show, is about walking around and making women smile. Next episode we will be playing Felvidek, an RPG maker game about an alcoholic knight in 15th century Slovakia. Thanks for listening!

Find Tess Scilipoti on her website and Instagram

Find Kerry Lloyd on the Leaving the Party Blog

And finally, find a short blog post about this episode here.

Show notes:

Narrat Engine

Disco Elysium (kerry brings this up several times lol)

Will This Bitter Night Bring Change? Two Women in Trouble

Christmas Hound Mia

The Crisis of German Social Democracy

Revolutions Podcast

Lovely Ladyverse

Mia Cain dot itch dot io

Digital Poppy dot itch dot io

Kerry and Tess introduce you to their brand new fun show about role playing games. Remember: August 15th will be the release date for our first episode on Lovely Lady RPG! Remember: this is all about making Tess smile.

Show notes:

https://leavingtheparty.blog/

https://www.tessscilipoti.com/

Blog post for today's episode

Thanks for listening! I'm very excited to start this podcast. Don't forget to bee yourself!

Kerry and Tess check out Felvidek, a 2024 historical fantasy game made in RPG Maker by Jozef Pavelka and Vlado Ganaj.

Find Tess Scilipoti on her website and Instagram

Find Kerry Lloyd on the Leaving the Party Blog

And finally, find a short blog post about this episode here.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro + "Raubiri"

00:04:25 Chatting

00:17:00 Felvidek

00:19:42 90 Second Summary + Cowbells

00:25:38 Wikipedia Corner #1

00:40:56 The game + Spoilers onward from here!

00:59:50 Actual vocal spoiler warning lol

01:01:53 Battle system blues

01:12:35 Break + "Dedina"

01:13:47 Returning + Fun facts

01:21:18 Pavol

01:27:54 Paula

01:34:20 A character named "The Jew" AKA Wikipedia Corner #2

01:53:57 Ida + Some stuff we missed

02:06:35 Adam

02:13:47 Character arcs

02:17:17 Break + "Bestie"

02:18:55 Crash Team Racing + Fun facts

02:25:15 Wikipedia Corner #3 + Ahriman

02:35:25 The JRPG third act

02:40:10 Pavol's religious visions + Swords

02:43:42 Our ending + Thoughts

02:47:48 Our next game is CHAINED ECHOES

02:49:21 Final recommendations + Thanks for listening :)

Show Notes

Demons and cultists in 15th-century Slovakia: Interview with Jozef Pavelka, the creator of Felvidek

Probably other stuff. Forgot to do show notes while editing this episode to be honest because I was thinking about the timestamps. Oops -Kerry

Wikipedia Corner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunyadi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_European_Jews_in_the_Middle_Ages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahriman

It's the longest episode of Leaving the Party yet! Tess and Kerry go in depth on the 2022 Japanese-inspired RPG Chained Echoes by Umami Tiger, talking first about what makes the game tick mechanically before going long for a spoiler-filled discussion of the characters and themes of the sprawling adventure.

The next game we will be playing is Parasite Eve, the 1998 "cinematic RPG" from Square Enix!

Find Tess Scilipoti on ⁠⁠her website⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠

Find Kerry Lloyd on the ⁠⁠Leaving the Party Blog⁠

And finally, find ⁠a short blog post about this episode here⁠.

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 - Intros
• 00:01:42 - "Calling Upon Bravery" - Eddie Marianukroh
• 00:03:19 - Kerry's playing Planescape Torment
• 00:08:45 - Kerry, Tess and friends have been playing Left 4 Dead 2
• 00:11:09 - The Half Life 2 Rant
• 00:15:10 - Tess has been playing the DQ7 demo
• 00:18:14 - Tess has been playing Final Fantasy Tactics
• 00:23:35 - Tess hates Final Fantasy IX and me
• 00:36:34 - Chained Echoes discussion begins
• 00:38:34 - Background developer info
• 00:47:12 - Never Forget Our Promise - Eddie Marianukroh
• 00:48:01 - History around "the JRPG"
• 01:05:09 - Episode structure + What is Chained Echoes?
• 01:11:35 - Pacing + Narrative/Mechanical Structure
• 01:16:52 - Variety of party character perspectives
• 01:20:38 - Filthy Humans! - Eddie Marianukroh
• 01:21:16 - Battle system + Overdrive meter
• 01:32:04 - The crystal situation is insane. The Sienna situation is insane
• 01:41:38 - Thoughts on difficulty and game length fatigue
• 01:49:25 - (minor spoilers) Kerry's True King difficulty snafu
• 01:51:55 - (minor spoilers over)
• 01:59:24 - Sky Armor battles
• 02:02:55 - Confusing UI fumbles
• 02:07:22 - Tess loves puzzles :)
• 02:14:10 - Champions of the Sky - Eddie Marianukroh
• 02:14:26 - MINIGAME BREAK - Is It Woke!?
• 02:25:32 - Himmelskaiser - Eddie Marianukroh
• 02:25:56 - riffin
• 02:29:03 - OFFICIAL spoiler warning!!! Spoilers from here onward
• 02:30:04 - 90 Second Summary
• 02:33:11 - Prologue
• 02:34:46 - Kylian + Berserk
• 02:39:01 - Plot and lore: "A whole bunch of God business"
• 02:46:03 - This game desperately needs a codex
• 02:56:15 - The White Rose Inn
• 03:10:30 - Victor is a good boy
• 03:13:41 - Sienna
• 03:17:26 - Tess says "I wish this woman wasn't gay" out loud
• 03:17:56 - We want more Raphael...
• 03:22:24 - Glenn, Lenne, Victor, Timothy, Van, Bartholomew, the church, echoes. CHAINED ECHOES
• 03:34:00 - Reigns of History - Eddie Marianukroh
• 03:34:48 - Leaving the Party investigates: where is "down east"?
• 03:36:52 - Ba'Thraz and the Lisvan
• 03:45:55 - Amalia and Cres + Raphael is sexy goated
• 03:52:15 - Robb, Taryn's ward + Forgiveness, redemption, and so on
• 04:05:35 - Tomke, Mikah, and The Worm...
• 04:11:41 - Egyl has the weirdest plot in the whole game
• 04:13:34 - Magnolia :)
• 04:17:31 - Dreaming a Dream of Red - Eddie Marianukroh
• 04:18:20 - Prince Frederik became Hitler because he's actually a really good guy
• 04:21:55 - Row, and the place of mecha and war in Chained Echoes
• 04:34:48 - The grimoire and the nuclear metaphor
• 04:42:14 - Kerry's DLC book report
• 04:52:17 - Cody's question: too much inspiration?
• 04:57:08 - Noah's question: how does it compare to other nostalgic RPGs like Sea of Stars?
• 05:01:30 - The End
• 05:08:25 - Next game is PARASITE EVE
• 05:09:01 - Final recommendations + thanks for listening :)

Show Notes

Matthias Linda Talks JRPG Influences, Deck13 Backing, Music, & More

Interview: Chained Echoes Developer

An Interview with ‘Chained Echoes’ Developer Matthias Linda

Why Japanese Fantasy has Dungeons… and sometimes Dragons

The ‘JRPG’ label has always been othering

TSTV podcast

dotzip podcast

thanks for listening xoxo

What a pleasant surprise! Leaving the Party, everybody's favorite transgender podcast blog website, has returned... Today, Tess and Kerry are joined by their lovely friend Yvonne to talk about Pokémon Lazarus, a romhack of Pokémon Emerald by Nemo622 with many contributions from the romhacking community. But not before they talk extensively about Pokémon as a franchise, a business, and a series of games while they seek to answer: why are they like that?

Find Tess Scilipoti on ⁠her website⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠

Find Kerry Lloyd on the ⁠Leaving the Party Blog

And finally, find a short blog post about this episode here.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:35 "Pokémart" by Tom Sanborn

00:02:14 Special guest Yvonne!

00:03:26 Next episode is still CHAINED ECHOES

00:06:01 Kerry's Skateboarding Video Game Corner

00:29:38 Kirby Air Riders

00:33:48 Introducing Pokémon, Lazarus, romhacks

00:40:35 Emulator handhelds

00:43:40 Tess's wires boy-servant sabotages the internet

00:44:45 What is Pokémon Lazarus? + Other thoughts

00:49:11 Our relationship to Pokémon

01:01:55 The economic necessity of a Pokémon game: do these games lowkey suck?

01:06:04 Wikipedia Corner #1: The Complicated Corporate Structure of Pokémon and How They Make Their Damn Money

01:14:04 Why the new gimmick every game?

01:18:05 The Legends games

01:27:50 Leaving the Party solves Pokémon

01:32:22 Tess's minigame: Who's That Category of Pokémon?

01:41:22 "Team Chimera Battle" by Tom Sanborn

01:41:58 Wikipedia Corner #2: Lazarus Taxa

01:47:54 Romhacks and our experience with them

01:53:58 Emerald Seaglass

01:58:04 Do you guys wanna share our teams?

02:03:49 Stupid and gay

02:04:17 "Acrisia City" by Tom Sanborn

02:04:49 More teams + Being attached to Pokémon

02:08:26 Themes and simplicity in Lazarus

02:25:52 Difficulty and hard mode

02:35:18 Gym and route design

02:40:23 Piraeus + World map

02:46:56 Our favorite locations

02:50:36 We all live in a Pokémon World

02:52:11 Isn't Rotom funny? Isn't it weird how Pokémon don't fuck? Things of this nature

02:55:24 Quality of life stuff

03:00:58 Kerry's new favorite Pokémon

03:04:33 Shoutout wildlife conservation

03:07:05 Our shiny Pokémon :)

03:08:17 Music thoughts

03:09:13 Closing Lazarus thoughts

03:13:22 "Ilios Gym Leader" by Tom Sanborn

03:13:49 Back from break

03:15:48 Annual Leaving the Party Awards Ceremony Awards 2025: Huge Panic at the Heart Throbbing School Trip! ("It's TV Time!" by Toby Fox)

03:16:30 Yvonne's ALPACAs

03:20:05 Kerry's ALPACAs

03:26:04 Tess's ALPACAs

03:36:31 Final recommendations

03:37:38 Outros and plugs. Thanks for listening! Next episode is CHAINED ECHOES :)

Show notes:

Nemo622's Kofi

Rib Removal Surgery

EA Saudi Arabia buyout

Tess's review of Pokemon Emerald

This crazy diagram of the largest known coelacanth next to a human for scale Lmao

The New York Times is a games company with a newspaper side hustle

Tama Hiroka's Ruby and Sapphire retrospective

Pokemon Unbound

Cecilily's interview with Nemo

Wikipedia Corner:

Lazarus Taxon

Takahē

Coelacanth

The Pokémon Company

Pokémon